Higher Education and Social Justice

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Is access to higher education really open to all? How does the experience of higher education vary between social groups? Are graduate jobs harder to find for some than for others? The transformation of higher education from an elite experience to a mass system delivering advanced education to a socially mixed clientele has often been conflated with a process of equalization through wider access. But is this really the case?Andy Furlong and Fred Cartmel fear not, arguing that young people from social and economically disadvantaged families suffer from unfair access arrangements, have a poorer student experience and have limited contact with their middle class peers. Moreover, students from less advantaged families who successfully complete their courses tend to face greater difficulty securing graduate jobs and may be left with higher levels of debt.Taking a holistic approach that focuses on access to higher education, experiences in higher education and gains derived from participation, the book explores the barriers that impede the progress of young people from less advantaged families and outlines the various forms of stratification that help limit the possibilities for social mobility through education.Higher Education and Social Justiceprovides essential reading for anyone who has an interest in higher education or a concern for social justice, including lecturers, administrators and policy makers in higher education.

Andy Furlong is Professor of Social Inclusion and Education and Fred Cartmel is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Glasgow. They have also co-authored Young People and Social Change 2/e for Open University Press (2006).